Deccan Chronicle

Parents jailed for battering minor

- DC CORRESPOND­ENT NEW DELHI, AUG. 4

A former Army major and his second wife were sentenced to 10 years in jail by a Delhi court on Saturday for torturing and trying to kill the officer’s minor son from his first wife.

Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat sentenced Major (Retd.) Lalit Balhara and his second wife Preeti Balhara to 10 years of rigorous imprisonme­nt under section 307 (attempt to murder) of the Indian Penal of Code and six months of imprisonme­nt under section 23 of the Juvenile Justice Act.

The boy was repeatedly tortured and locked up without food. They would insert a stick in his mouth due to which his teeth broke

The court also imposed a fine of ` 60,000 each on both after holding them guilty of battering the minor boy and trying to kill him after the victim’s mother, herself an Army captain, had died in 2000.

The victim’s counsel Ravinder S. Garia had demanded the harshest possible punishment for the convicts saying the minor has suffered permanent injury and has been left with ‘battered baby syndrome’ for life.

The boy, now 13, was first brought to the hospital on April 23, 2002 — at the age of three — for treatment of alleged consumptio­n of insecticid­e by him.

In weeks and months ahead, the hospital virtually became his second home where he was admitted repeatedly for treatment of various injuries ranging from fractured ribs to bleeding skull and smashed teeth and all the time with a starved look.

The case came to light in 2005, when the minor's maternal grandparen­ts had moved the HC seeking his custody, accusing his father Major (retd.) Lalit Balhara and the officer’s second wife Preeti of torturing him after his mother's death.

During the trial, the boy had deposed against his parents and said he was repeatedly tortured and was locked up without food. They would also insert the stick in his mouth due to which some of his teeth were broken, he had said.

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